French Street Artist JR Is Making The District His Next Canvas

French Street Artist JR Is Making The District His Next Canvas

One prerequisite to being a world-class city is having a thriving art scene, and the District's creative economy has been blowing up in recent years. And now, to further validate our high opinion of the DMV, famed French street artist JR is coming to town to install a civil-rights-themed work on the face of a building at 1401 T Street NW.

Known for evocative images that can cover entire buildings, JR won a 2011 TED prize for his work and gave a wildly popular TED Talk, which is how he landed on the radar of Contemporary Wing's Lauren Gentile. While his usual installations are illegal (defacing public property, and all), he got the blessing of the building's owner this time around and will be hard at work on October 9 and 10. Since JR rarely works in the U.S. (only New York and Los Angeles, to date), we're pretty stoked that he chose our fair city for the project. (Washington Post)